


The Comedy of (Continuity) Errors

by Gumby1011



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Humor, What is this I don't even-
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 14:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4395860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gumby1011/pseuds/Gumby1011
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's strange days aboard the Lost Light as numerous unfamiliar Autobots seemingly spring up out of the ground! And it probably doesn't help that apparently no two bots can seem to remember the events of the War the same way. Follow Rung as he tries to sit everybody down and sort out the mess! At this point he's going to need all the help he can get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Comedy of (Continuity) Errors

Rodimus was sitting in the command chair on the bridge. Which was actually quite unusual, seeing as he was usually walking around the ship, wise-cracking and high-fiving just about every ‘bot he walked past and acting like he was the hottest thing since V-12 energon-injected engine blocks. And yet here he was, sitting in his chair, quite frankly _moping_ about how his crew wanted to kill each other. As in, _way_ more than usual. His blue optics flitted about several surveillance holograms, each showing a different fight in real time throughout the ship. There was Whirl, fighting somebody. There was Cyclonus, fighting somebody. And there was Ultra Magnus, trying to pry _Rewind_ of all people and somebody else apart. And there was one thing that all of these “somebodies” had in common.

Rodimus didn’t recognize _any_ of them.

Now Rodimus considered himself a ‘bot of the populace. Natural part of being a leader, really. He tried to remember a little bit about _each_ of his crewbots- or at the very least put a name to a face- but… No, half of these ‘bots were totally unrecognizable to him! Rodimus was sure to file this away. He’d try and find an explanation later, but right now priority was finding out exactly what was causing these fights, and how to stop them. And to that end the orange-painted ‘bot turned to face Rung. “Alright doc, what’ve ya got for me? Space madness? Hab Fever? Maybe a software bug of some kind?”

The therapist walked up beside Rodimus and squinted his eyes at one hologram in particular. “Could we enable audio on this fight please, Perceptor?” The red painted bot simply nodded before flipping a switch on the control chair he was sitting in. “Ah, thank you kindly.”

The fight was currentlyfavoring the somebody, who actually happened to look a LOT like Rewind but with blue paint where Rewind had black **“Who the Pit do you think you are, trying to disrespect Optimus’ memory!?”** The stranger twisted the poor memory-stick’s arm behind his back as Ultra Magnus somehow _failed_ to separate them.

 **“Do you... have a bolt loose- Argh- in your cranium!?”** Rewind growled out between gasping intakes. **“Prime didn’t die! He just exiled himself!”**

 **“SHUT UP!”** The stranger shouted, his grip on Rewind finally faltering as Magnus’ hands found purchase. **“I saw the footage! I SAW Megatron blast him! I SAW The color drain from Prime’s chassis!”**

 **“I’m not wrong!”** Rewind shouted, indignant. **“I’m an archivist! Knowing these things is my JOB!”**

Rodimus and Rung just stared at the hologram, the former slackjawed while the latter put a hand to his chin. “How truly peculiar…” Rung murmered. “Now, Perceptor, let’s have a listen on Cyclonus’ little scuffle, please.”

“Understood.”

 **“-ink I’d let you leave ‘ere alive you two-bit stupid DECEPTICON-”** It was at this point that the somebody (green and gray, built tough by the looks of him) was cut off mid-rant by a spin-kick to the back of the head courtesy of Cyclonus.

The purple ancient simply picked up the stranger by the back on the neck jointure and held him up so they were optic-to-optic. **“I do not know where you gathered the notion that I was ever a Decepticon from, but you’re wrong.”**

“Hrm…” Rung ran through various scenarios in his CPU before turning to Rodimus. “I think it’s safe to say that over the course of the war, rumor and hear-say has led to these numerous Autobots having misconceptions about the events of the war. Most likely due to inaccurate sources of information during their deployments throughout the stars.”

“Really? You think _that’s_ the cause of all of this?” Rodimus looked at the hologram displays. “I don’t know, that seems a little too… _simple,_ you know?”

Rung simply shrugged and cracked a small grin. “Well, either that or something on this ship has been drawing in Autobots from other, parallel universes where the events of the war transpired differently.” For a moment the bridge was silent. Then-

“Pfffffffffffffah-ha-ha-ha-hah!” Rodimus had closed his optics and was bent forward in his chair, laughing until his abdominal servos hurt. “BWAH-HA-AHAHAHAH! Ooohoohooh, Hoooooh boy.” The orange bot wiped a small bit of condensation from one optic. “Oh, Rung, I haven’t laughed like that in ages, thank you, eheheh.” The leader let out a bit of exhaust. “Okay then, doc, what do you suggest?”

Rung put a single finger up as he spoke. “Well, I recommend that we nip these problems in the bud and have a large meeting to help prevent future misunderstandings. We’ll mandate all of these new crewmates to attend, and by establishing the official timeline for all to see, we’ll be able to end this turmoil.”

“Alright then, sounds like a plan to me.” Rodimus rose from his command chair and walked over to the nearby wall, where he keyed in a brief code on the intercom that would put him through to every intercom on the entire ship. He cleared his vocal unit for a moment before beginning. “Attention, crew of the _Lost Light!_ It’s come to my attention that as of late there’s been some _confusion_ regarding to the events of the war. As such, our ship’s archivist Rewind, myself and Rung will be holding a gathering at Swerve’s where we’re gonna set the record straight. I have it on good authority that Swerve will be serving free engex and mixed drinks throughout the proceedings! Can’t wait to see you all there.”

As Rodimus shut down the intercom, Perceptor couldn’t help but raise the brow ridge over his normal optic. “And on _who’s_ authority do you assume Swerve is going to to leak his entire bar’s stock away?”

“The _best_ authority, Percy!” Rodimus waggled a digit. “ _My_ authority.”

* * *

Swerve’s was positively _packed!_ Every table was full, and in fact there were ‘bots standing shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the bar! Some were there out of curiosity of how ANYBODY could have gotten details about the war wrong. Some were there to settle scores from the fights that had been breaking out. And some of them were there for the free engex.

… Alright, so _most_ of them were there for the free engex. And this was a fact not lost upon Swerve as he frantically scrambled between ‘bots, filling (small) glasses with (watered down) engex and sliding them along the counter. And while he _loved_ to see Swerve’s as full as it was, it hurt him deep in his spark to know that not so much as a single shanix was being passed back over the bar to him. Which is why it was a big relief when Rung stood up on a table at the head of the bar and cleared his vocal unit.

Not that that did anything of course.

“Um, excuse me?” Rung spoke up over the dull roar of the crowd. “Begging your pardon, but if we could just all settle down for a moment, perhaps we can get the meeting underway?” A few nanocycles later, not a single bot had quieted down. “Oh…” Rung turned back to face Rodimus. “Perhaps _you_ might have a little more luck?”

“Heh, no problem, doc.” Roddy patted the therapist on the shoulder plating as they changed places. Now on top of the table, the captain of the _Lost Light_ cupped his hands around his mouth plating. “ _Hellooooooo_ crewbots! Quiet down, it’s time we got this thing started!” Almost every ‘bot Rodimus recognized piped down. But the main _problem_ was that ‘bots he knew seemed to be in short supply in this room. The leader had taken a second intake and was about to simply try again when-

_HONKHOOOOOOOOOOONK!_

And just like that, the _entire_ jam-packed bar fell silent and turned to face the source of the noise: none other than Ultra Magnus, who was currently brooding in a corner with his arms crossed. The enforcer popped his neck-jointure to one side. “Are you ‘bots going to actually pay attention now, or am I going to have to start handing out violation slips?” When nobody answered him, Magnus just nodded. “Alright. Good.” He nodded over to Rodimus.

And the flame-painted ‘bot couldn’t help but look slightly deflated as he got off the table and relinquished center stage to Rung. “Thank you, Ultra Magnus.” Rung smiled as he climbed back atop his table. “And good afternoon, Autobots of all stripes! Today will be a red letter day for the history of Cybertron. Today- after all- will be the day that we take a step back and catalogue the events of the past few thousand millennia.” There was a wave of murmurs throughout all of Swerve’s at the therapist spoke. “That said, we are in need of all of your help. In particular, the events of the last few megacycles since the Decepticon near-victory in particular are very vital, communication has been touch-and-go ever since then, so reports from across deployments have been few and far between.” Rung looked out among the crowd, forming quick profiles among the dozens of attendees. “What I would like is for a ‘bot from each deployment here to go over the events of their activity since the communications breakdown. And questions from any other ‘bots about these events are welcome, assuming they refrain from being overly invasive. The ship’s archivist here-” Rung gestured to where Rewind was standing nearby “Will record it all for the official time-”

“BOOOOOO!” Rewind’s blue-painted look-alike was shouting from halfway across the bar. “Don’t give the job to _him,_ he can’t remem-OW!” And almost immediately the bot was silenced by a cuff to the back of the head from Ratchet.

“Ah, thank you doctor.” Rung scratched the back of his cranial plating nervously. It wasn’t the _best_ note to kick things off on. “Now, do I have any volunteers?”

Several hands went up around the bar, and Rung’s optics settled on one ‘bot in particular. His alt-mode panels were blue, his limbs were white, he had red optics and a V8 engine block with red exhaust pipes featured prominently on his chest. “You there, you can take the first go. Mind giving us an introduction as well?”

“Sure, little man.” The ‘bot rose from his chair. “The name’s Side Burn, spent some time deployed on a little backwater planet called Earth.”

“Ah yes, Earth.” Rung smiled. “I believe our captain has some familiarity with the events that took place there. All the same, would you be so kind as to share your experience?”

“Heh, no problem.” Side Burn grinned. “So the first couple of megacycles there were really just the textbook stuff. Grabbed an alt-mode, kept low, trained an audio receptor on the local air waves for potential enemy movements, that kind of thing. Only really got any action a good while later. Was busy chasing this cute little red Maserati when I get a message over the radio to help stop an enemy assault on one of the Earthling’s cities- New York, I think it was.”

Rodimus immediately rose from his seat. “Oh, so you were there for the battle of New York?”

“Sure was!” The blue ‘bot grinned, a smile on his face. “So yeah, I take a quick space bridge to the city, right? And it was _pandemonium!_ Three big ol’ Predacons were-”

“Hold up, hold up!” Ratchet held up a hand. “I was _at_ the Battle of New York, last I knew the Predacons weren’t present for that.”

“Pffft.” Side Burn just waved his hand. “Of _course_ the Predacons were there, old timer! Who _else_ would we be fighting?”

“The Decepticons?” Ratchet suggested, frowning.

“Hhhm…” the blue speedster put a hand to his chin. “No, no, last I heard there weren’t any Decepticon on-planet before the Predacons reformatted those proto-forms. So anyways-”

“Hold on, that doesn’t sound right.” Ratchet shook his head and raised his hand again. “We didn’t even know that there _were_ any Predacons on Earth until they just showed up one day defending the Chinese border during that whole North Korea debacle.”

“What?” Side Burn raised a skeptical brow ridge. “Nah man, that’s just straight up wrong. I _know_ that the Predacons were there, I saw Megatron and Prime fighting with my own two optics!”

Confused murmurs spiked off throughout the room.

And now it was Whirl’s turn to look confused. “Wait, Megatron _is_ a Decepticon. Are you sure you’re getting the name right?”

“Positive.” The blue ‘bot nodded. “Big scary guy, expert multi-former, fond of his two-headed dragon alt-mode?”

“Oh!” Drift spoke up from his corner of the bar. “You mean _Giga_ tron, then. Yeah, that could explain your confusion.” Then the silver car paused a moment. “But, yeah, Gigatron was never on Earth. Wasn’t a Predacon, either.”

“Bitch, I was _THERE!_ ” Side Burn shouted, indignant.

“Alright, alright!” Rung shouted, perspiration forming on his eyebrows. “That’s enough of that, Side Burn.” A slight nervous laugh. “We’ll iron out the details of your particular deployment later, is there anybody else who’d like to go?”

“Yeah, I have some things to say about Earth.” Another ‘bot raised his hand- yellow painted with a red chest and blue optics. “Name’s Hot Shot, by the way. But I do have one major question- How in the galaxy have none of the Earth-missioners here mentioned the Minicons yet?”

“Mini… Cons?” Rung’s eyebrows shot up. “And those are?”

“Small Cybertronians?” Hot Shot raised a brow-ridge. “Stand about as tall as a human teenager?” Confusion rolled throughout the bar. “Jolt, get over here.” An outright _tiny_ bot rose from his seat at a nearby table- he was orange, had four rotors on his back and was every bit as diminutive as Hot Shot claimed. “You know, _Minicons!_ ”

Rewind simply shrugged. “Nope. Never heard of them.”

“Ugh.” Hot Shot smacked his palm against his facial plating. “Okay, so anyways, the first megacycle or so of our deployment was spent gathering Minicons, you can’t really overlook that!”

Ratchet leaned over to his neighbor and whispered “No, it really wasn’t.”

“Wait, why would you spend so much time recovering these Minicons?” Swerve hollered from over at the bar. The whole meeting was oddly engrossing for some reason or other.

“Well, for the power they give us, of course!” Hot Shot tapped a digit against his cranial plating while Jolt stuck his chest out proudly.

“Come again?” Tailgate chirped somewhere in the crowd. “I’m sorry, but he’s smaller than me, and I can hardly hold a blaster!”

“Ah, but can you powerlink?” Hot Shot waggled a digit at the small ancient.

“Um, powerwhatnow?” Even Ultra Magnus was baffled by this.

“Heh.” the yellow ‘bot chuckled. “Powerlinking: the process of minicons combining with partners to unlock dormant, unobtainable power.”

“So they’re combiners, then?” Whirl asked.

“Um…” Hot Shot shook his head. “No, not at all.”

“Why not?” Swerve chuckled from the bar. “Stack enough of ‘em on top of one another, you _might_ get a whole soldier! Heh.”

“Okay, shut up, just watch.” Hot Shot turned to his partner. “Jolt? Powerlink!” The small helicopter nodded, quickly turning into his alt-mode and attaching to Hot Shot’s backside (to the minor amusement of the more crass ‘bots present.) And almost immediately the Hot Shot’s alt-mode axle freed itself from his shoulders and swung around, configuring itself into a _sizeable_ back-mounted blaster. “See? Totally worth it!”

Ratchet, meanwhile, just rolled his optics. “You know I could probably find a _better_ way to activate that feature of yours.”

“One that doesn’t require a partner?” Swerve suggested

“Erm,” Drift spoke up. “Or at the very least doesn’t put your partner in quite as much danger?”

“He has a point.” Ultra Magnus spoke up. “Jolt’s current location on your chassis makes him a large, orange weak point for opponents to fire on. Doing so would not only kill your partner, but disable your most powerful weapon.”

“Yeah, Cyber Keys are waaaaay more useful.”

There was a moment of silence throughout the entire room.

“Okay.” Rodimus stood up, looking more than a little cross now. “ _Who_ the _FRAG_ just said that!?”

Another yellow ‘bot sidled out of the crowd. This one had earthmover scoops hanging out above his shoulder-plates. “Hey there.” The bot waved. “Name’s Landmine.”

Rung, however, had had enough. He leaned over to Rodimus for a nanocycle. “You know what? You keep track of them for a moment.” The orange bot hopped off of his table and started making his way through the crowd. He continued to do so until he stumbled across a familiar face. “Hello, Chromedome.” Rung folded his arms. “Enjoying the show?”

“Huh?” Chromedome looked down at the smaller ‘bot in confusion. “Erm, I mean it’s _kind_ of funny?”

“Come with me, please.” Rung brushed past the mnemosurgeon and out the door of Swerve’s, out into the hallway. As soon as they were out, Rung turned on Chromedome. “And exactly _what in the Pit_ have you been doing?”

“Excuse me?” Chromedome’s visor furrowed in anger. “Are you pinning all of this on _me,_ Rung?”

“Well _excuse me_ for following the facts.” Rung poked a digit to Chromedome’s chest-plating. “But in that bar, right now are _dozens_ of ‘bots who have implausible, outright _impossible_ stories that for all intents and purposes _they_ believe to be real.” The little therapist folded his arms. “Look, I can accept the confusion over Gigatron, I can understand some misguided attempt to boost an Autobot’s power, but a-”

_“CYBER KEY POWEEERRR!”_

Rung and Chromedome glanced back into the bar, where “Landmine” had just shouted to the ceiling like a maniac. Then Rung immediately turned to face the memory specialist again. “Well, beg your pardon if it seems like some memories have bee- OOF!”

It was at this point that something small, red and glowing struck Rung in the back of the cranial plating, bowling him over and carving a path through the crowd before shooting into a slot on the back of Landmine’s body. Several blades extended from the alt-mode wheels settled on his back, which promptly flipped up.

“And I assume I did  _that,_ too?” Chromedome snarked, a smirk hidden beneath his faceplate.

Rung looked up at the yellow bot, and shakily got back to his feet. “Erm… Apologies, Chromedome.”

“Accepted.”

Meanwhile back in the bar, Magnus was more confused than ever. “So what _exactly_ do those do?”

“With these babies right here, I can generate gale force winds with the greatest of ease!” Landmine boasted.

“So?”

“Huh?” Landmine turned to face Cyclonus, who’d spoken up.

“We weigh multiple tons each and are incredibly dense with all of our armor plating and such.” Cyclonus shrugged. “You really expect any amount of wind to be effective on a Decepticon in battle?”

“Oh, I can _show_ you if you like!”

Rung immediately ran back into the bar. “Now now, there’s no need for that!” he shouted.

“Oh, I think there _is!_ ” Landmine hollered. “These keys aren’t to be underestimated, they’re the entire _reason_ we went to Earth in the first place!”

“No, we went there to track down _Minicons!_ ” Hot Shot shouted.

Ratchet shook his head “You’re both wrong, we went to Earth to follow Decepticons when they went there to mine Ore 13.”

“Man, y’all bitches don’t know _shit!_ ” A new ‘bot stepped forward, this one silver and incredibly intricately designed. There was no way he had an alt-mode. If nothing else, he looked like some senator who’d shed his alt-mode for the sake of mono-form ornamentation. “We went to Earth lookin’ for the Allspark!” And with that, the newcomer had totally silenced the bar.

“What?” Drift screwed his optics shut. “You… That’s… Alright, so you went looking for the afterlife. _Explain._ ”

“Whaaaat?” The silver ‘bot waved the claim away. “Nah, man, we were lookin’ for that giant cube that gave all us ‘bots life!”

Rodimus on the other hand could merely hold up his hand. “Wait, okay, that’s not…” He took a few deep, cleansing intakes. “ _Who the hell are you!?_ ”

“Name’s Jazz.” The bot managed a lazy salute. “Lieutenant to the big ‘Prime himself.”

“No. You’re not.” Ratchet snorted. “You’re not Jazz. I _know_ Jazz. Look at you, you don’t even have an alt-mode!”

“Bitch, check yourself. Have a look with your own optics!” “Jazz” then promptly transformed. Which for him in particular was a process convoluted and intricate enough that to the other, much-more-simply constructed bots? It was pretty much impossible to follow. As a matter of fact, through a Cybertronian’s eye it was was _so_ complex and over-engineered that it was perceived by them as a human might look upon another human  twisting their wrist in a full circle, turning their hand inside out and breaking every bone in their fingers just to form a fist. And as such, Swerve’s erupted into a light-show of rejected, multicolored and glowing watered-down engex as wave after wave of Autobot emptied their fuel tanks out of sheer nauseating disgust.

It was a calamity at which Swerve could only scream “NOOOOOOOO!”

**Author's Note:**

> So, if anybody still has doubts, allow me to explain the premise a bit: Through a certain event- I won't spoil exactly what yet, just know it's nothing special- various Autobots from among various continuities are appearing on the Lost Light! Of course- much like those five-year-old Transformer fans arguing on the swings back in the day- Our poor naive Autobots don't have the comforting notion of the Multiverse to protect their poor, fragile CPUs. As worlds collide, will Rung be able to keep the 'bots from tearing each other apart long enough for them to find the truth? Find out in the next part of this three (maybe four) part series!
> 
> (Oh, and as this is essentially a dream-match, I have taken some liberties with the timeline regarding Lost Light Crew-members. These will become apparent next part.)


End file.
